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"After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terraformed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point. After the War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the edges of the system, far from Alliance control. Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it. A captain's goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying."

While an armed tactical drone demonstration is held before a large group of people, Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his crew are engaging in a heist of ancient artworks. As they flee with the art, their truck is confronted by the drone, which pursues them across the busy highways of an unnamed planet, exchanging weapons fire with Reynolds' crew. The entire pursuit is remotely monitored by the man giving a demonstration of the drone's combat capabilities. Serenity's crew narrowly manage to escape the drone, which they deactivate and steal as well. Meanwhile, Inara Serra is engaged with a customer named Ephraim Sanda—whom she fantasizes to be Mal.

Reynolds' crew presents the drone to a potential buyer, who is disappointed that it is missing its logic core. Mal informs the buyer that he can have the core once his crew gets paid. Although the buyer does not have the money, Mal agrees to send him the logic core upon retrieval of a large amount of guarded treasure, the location of which is provided by the buyer. The crew journeys to a Buddhist temple and takes the money. Upon counting it, Reynolds realizes that it is far more than expected and is dumbstruck with the realization that they are now rich beyond their wildest imaginations.

The crew heads off to the luxurious resort planet of Pelorum, where they rent out a suite that costs 1,000 credits a night. Each crew member regales the others with their personal fantasies of how their lives would change if they each had limitless wealth. Meanwhile, Ephraim prepares his men to take down Reynolds, who is suspected of being a member of the Dust Devils, a terrorist organization that targets the Alliance. At the same time, the demonstrator of the tactical drone tortures Reynolds' buyer for his role in trafficking the drone, pulling out all of his teeth, a practice run of what he intends to do to Reynolds. Because the drone was designed to expel microscopic tracking beacons in the event of unexpected shutdown or failure, he has tracked Reynolds and his crew to Pelorum. Reynolds and Zoë detect the arrival of Sanda's ship, which is en route to Inara's shuttle. Reynolds journeys to the shuttle and is surprised to see Simon Tam emerge from it. He is then knocked unconscious from an unseen assailant.

It is revealed that the unseen assailant is Sanda, who ties Mal up and beats him, thinking him to be a Dust Devil. Zoë later investigates Inara's shuttle and notices the signs of the struggle nearby that alerts her to what has happened to Reynolds. She informs the rest of the crew that the Dust Devil for whom Sanda is looking is her, as she was one of the soldiers who kept on fighting the Alliance, thinking of themselves as "peacemakers." She broadcasts an open message for Sanda to hear, informing him where she will surrender to him, all the while hoping to lure him into an ambush. Just after Sanda arrives with Malcolm and some men, Sanda's ship is blown up by the Tactical Drone, whose operator has appeared to exact revenge on Reynolds. In their mutual interest of survival, Reynolds' and Sanda's crews fight off the Tactical Drone together. After the Tactical Drone is defeated, Sanda allows Reynolds and his crew to depart, but Reynolds later learns that Sanda's men stole the money from Serenity. Inara, observing that Reynolds is neither surprised nor concerned about the loss of the money, suggests that, unlike the others, Reynolds is already living out his fantasy, and that it would be threatened if the rest of his crew suddenly became rich enough to go off in their own directions. Reynolds responds that he simply accepts where he is in life and that it "ain't a place of wishes."